Softball Tournament Team Recap

Well it's been awhile since I last posted. With the softball season fast approaching I figured it was time for a little softball talk. With the tournament season starting on May 10 in Warrens I figured some tournament talk would be needed before the softball league talk. I figured the best way to start off would be to do a recap of last years tournament team.

I normally play for Harmony Bar and Grill out of Mauston the majority of the time with a couple tournaments I was with different teams. Our Harmony team is a pretty decent team. We typically take somewhere from third to sixth in most tournaments depending on whose there and how many teams are in the tournament. Were good enough to beat the teams we should be but, can't quite compete with the top teams in the area. Our teams strong parts are our outfield defense, our team speed, and our hitting for average. We lack power on bigger fields, infield defense is so so at times, and are pitching is also so so. I typically play third base unless I'm struggling on the defensive side and then I get move to right center.

First tournament of last year was in Hillsboro, I played with a team that was just put together by a friend that needed some last minute additions to fill out the team. In our first game we ended up playing the Harmony team that was put together at the last minute and I later ended up joining. We came out hot and were able to 15 run rule them with relative ease. Game two we met up with a very good Mt Tabor team they ended up beating us by about 10 runs. Our final game or the tournament our bats went cold and we lost to a Leahy's Pub team 8-7 in a game we really should of won but, couldn't get the big hits. Only an eight team tournament we ended up taking fifth place. Can't remember the rest of the standings but, Mt Tabor took out Harmony 2 in the championship. Leahy's Pub took fourth place. Harmony and Coal Miners were two and out can't even remmber the other two teams in the tourney.

In our first tournament playing with Harmony we were in Tomah. I saw our because me and my brother played with them. Our first game saw an hour or so long rain delay right in the middle of the game. Some rough pitching doomed us and we ended up losing 16-15 against Car Shop, a young team from the Tomah area. The second game was against a team from Black River Falls called First and Last Change. Their inexperienced in tournaments showed as we beat them 17-1, their lone run coming on a home run. The next game we came in as huge underdogs against Varsity Club. Anyone that follows softball knows that VC is considered one of the top softball teams in the state of Wisconsin. VC came out looking for the long ball and just couldn't get it over the 320 foot fence and we were able to beat them 7-2 in a low scoring game for softball. I can't remember the next game but, we won fairly easily and then in the next game we bowed out to a very very good Barron's team out of the Lacrosse/Sparta Area. They crushed the ball and our defense was so so and we ended up losing 25-11 or there about. There were 12 or 14 teams in the tournament I believe.
Top Six Finishers
1. Breakaway Tomah
2. Barrons Lacrosse/Sparta
3. Harmony 2 Mauston
4. Coors Light Tomah?
5. Harmony Mauston
Sheer Delight Baraboo

Fourth of July tournament ended up being in Lavalle. This was really a fun tournament do to the setup. There was 12 teams in the tournament and we were split up into three pools of four teams and played round robin. The top two teams of each bracket moved on to a six team double elimination tournament. Game one we handled a league team from Lavalle fairly easily. Second game we played a good Bar Rons team out of the Ithaca/Spring Green area. It was a great back and forth game that we ended up losing 14-11. Final game of pool play was against C&H team made up of young guys from Reedsburg, Dells, and Baraboo area. Another game that we won fairly easily and moved onto double elimination play by taking second in the bracket. First round of elimination play we played Cejays from Baraboo who hit us very hard and we played some so so defense. Final score was about 22-9 or somewhere in there. Next game we played Salisbury's something or other which we beat fairly easily, can't remember the score. We then were eliminated from the tournament by River City out of Lacrosse.
Top Six Finishers
1. Bar Ron Farms Ithaca/Spring Green/ Richland Center
2. River City Lacrosse
3. Cejays Baraboo
4. Harmony Mauston
Club 33 Lavalle
6. Salisbury Richland Center

Well that's the first third of the tournament season. I'll be recapping the next two thirds of the season in my next couple posts that will be following in the next couple days.